Calling Orientation in College Students and Their Mentor

When people feel called to fulfill a career, their work activity is inseparable from their life, has a deep meaning and value, and is pleasant and socially valuable. Viewing one's career as a calling is critical to the individual success and central in promoting positive work-related outcomes. Despite an emerging interest in calling, little is known about social and personal factors that contribute to its development. Theoretical and empirical contributions suggest that the perception of calling changes over time (Dobrow, 2013; Duffy, Manuel, Borger, & Bott, 2011) and involves an “ongoing process” (Dik & Duffy, 2009; Duffy & Dik, 2013) of evaluating the purpose and meaningfulness of their job activities and their interaction with the context. Some features of the environment may influence the individual attitude toward their work and help people live out their calling (Harzer & Ruch, 2012; Guo et al., 2014; Cardador, Dane, & Pratt, 2011). It is also possible that trusted sources of information or advanced experience individuals play an important role in the development of calling by providing a role and an attitude model (Ragins, Cotton, & Miller, 2000). The only study about the interaction between social environment and calling shows that people with a stronger calling are more willing to ignore discouraging career-related advice of a trusted mentor (Dobrow, 2013). The present contribution provides the first examination of the relationship between calling orientation toward work of protégés and their mentors. Subject and Procedure A sample of 2942 college students was provided with three paragraphs (Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, & Schwartz, 1997) describing work as a job (e.g. people only interested in the material benefits of working), a career (e.g. people mainly interested in achievement and power), or a calling (e.g. people work for personal satisfaction and fulfillment), and asked which one best matched their orientation to work. We then asked to describe their mentor using the same scale. Students also rated how much their mentor offered role modeling and provided them with vocational and psychological support (Ragins & Cotton, 1999; Pellegrini & Scandura, 2005). Results Mentor and protégé’s job, career and calling relations to work are highly and positively correlated (r ranges from .48 to .57). Students with a calling are more likely to have a mentor with a calling orientation toward their work. To investigate deeper this association, we analyzed whether it is mediated by the quality of the mentoring relationship, and specifically whether the mentor’s role modeling, psychological support and vocational support mediate the relationship. Results show that only a very small amount of the association between the calling orientation students and their mentors is accounted for by the quality of their mentoring relationship. These results suggest that student’s calling relates to mentor’s calling independently from the mentoring functions provided. Conclusion The development of a calling is nearly unexplored. This contribution provides a first empirical support toward the hypothesis that a mentor might heavily influence an individual protégé, independently from the quality of their relationship. Limitations of the present study will be discussed, together with the implications of these results for both theory and practice. References Dobrow, S.R. (2013). 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